HONG KONG (April 6, 2000 8:02 a.m. EDT http://www.nandotimes.com) - A Hong Kong teenager has been sentenced to six months in jail for hacking into the Internet in the first case of its kind in the territory, a report said Thursday. Po Yiu-ming, 19, was jailed Wednesday, while two of his companions, Tam Hei-lun, 19, and Mak King-lam, 18, were sent to a detention center after pleading guilty to a total of 49 computer crime-related charges, the Hong Kong Standard reported. It was the first case to be brought before a Hong Kong court after the computer crime laws were enacted in 1994. The trio -- who reportedly got to know each other through surfing the Internet -- exchanged illegally-gained login names and passwords in order to hack into the accounts of Internet subscribers. Magistrate Ian Candy described the three as "intelligent" individuals who could have developed their computer skills for good causes. But Candy said the offenses were serious and they had to be given custodial sentences as a deterrent to others. The trio were released on bail of 10,000 Hong Kong dollars ($1,285) pending appeal. On Wednesday, a system analyst was sentenced to perform 100 hours of community service for unlawfully retrieving tendering data from a government computer system.